The Celestials and the Abyssal-Infernal Axis have always been at war. That is, they were at war before there was such a thing as time. So you could say, they have been at war \u201cfor all time,\u201d \u201csince the beginning of time,\u201d or even from \u201ctime out of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The point is, the war is<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is the war between good and evil. If you are inclined to ethical debates, we might wander down the myriad hedgerows of deontological and teleological questions whether \u201cis good good\u201d<\/em> or \u201cis evil evil<\/em>?\u201d There\u2019s really no point, since you can understand the teleological in deontological terms, and visa versa. For the wizards at Resselear \u2018Patalogical Institute (RPI) and the Merdeterre Institute of Thaumaturgy (MIT), this is the sort of conversation that gets someone polymorphed into a gibbon late in the evening once the wine casks have run low. For the rest of us, it\u2019s hardly worth the bother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suffice it to say, there\u2019s a sliding floor beneath good<\/em> and bad<\/em>. We call that floor, \u201cUr.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ur has many meanings depending on context. It can can mean \u201cuniversal\u201d or \u201ceternal\u201d or \u201cmajestic,\u201d for example. Or, it is a syllable one utters before admitting to an act of extraordinary misjudgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Celestials named it Ur, because the Celestials created it. That\u2019s the one thing Celestials can do that neither the Abyssal nor Infernal can pull off: creation<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Abyssal can animate something someone else created. (which we call the undead, not to be confused with the Ur-dead which is an entirely different matter). <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Infernal can attempt to order and structure themselves in a reflection of something someone else created, and we call that \u201cbureaucracy.\u201d The Infernal are shockingly good at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only the Celestials can make something of nothing, working from little more than pure inspiration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to Ur, the inspiration was this: \u201cSince all is in balance and the war at a standstill, shouldn\u2019t we create an imbalance to give us an advantage over those lousy demons and devils?\u201d The Celestials thought it a cracker-jack idea and set about undoing the careful order of things. For inspiration, they drew from the Elemental, Astral, and Etherial Planes. Their goal was to simply materialize another Plane into being. They called this, naturally enough, the Material<\/em> Plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, on the Material Plane they created prototypes for the soldiers they would conscript to deal with the demons and devils, once and for all. These various creatures were the Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings, and Humans. It was \u201ctheme and variation\u201d for the Celestials in those heady days of creative change. It was decided, as the key design decision \u2014 and to this day perhaps THE KEY DESIGN FLAW \u2014 to equip these creatures with a free will<\/em>. The thinking went something like this: \u201ceverything we have tried against the demons and the devils has amounted to the cube root of bugger all. Why not spin the wheel?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Employing their free will, the Dwarves simply walked off the job. They set themselves about the plundering of the many splendid resources made available to the porto-humanoids as tools for the war. These hordes were a most welcome sight to the dragons, who came later, but we\u2019re getting ahead of ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Employing their free will, the Gnomes set themselves to industry straight away. They assembled from the Material the materials they needed to create astonishingly well crafted objects of tinkering \u2014 not one of them being any bloody use whatsoever to the war effort. A device to remove the skin from a potato was not especially threatening to demons and devils, what with their claws, teeth, barbs, and razor-sharp thises-n-thats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Employing their free will, the Halflings simply couldn\u2019t be bothered with war. There was so much to eat, drink, and smoke. They set about making sure they had plenty of all of that, and then set their creative talents to the question of \u201cexactly how comfortable can I make any space I am currently occupying?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Employing their free will, the Humans showed great promise. They were imaginative, focused, dedicated, and determined when it came to the applied art of violence. They were the most promising innovation with a bellicose tendency toward weapons and warfare. Humans promptly turned these talents on each other. Eventually, they turned their talents on the Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What particularly surprised the Celestials about their creation, however, was what the Wizards at RPI and MIT have come to call, \u201cpersistent \u2018patalogical background radiation,\u201d or PPBR, for short. The Celestials unleashed a tremendous amount of raw, pure creativity in the materialization of the Material. That creativity was not entirely consumed by creation itself. What was left \u2014 the dividend of inefficiency \u2014 hung about the place. Proto-humaniods with with a certain aptitude noticed this. They figured out ways of manipulating it. They called this \u201cmagic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Manipulating patalogical background radiation mostly required the use of a focus<\/em>. A focus could be an object or totem that a magic user could set his or her mind to. By concentrating on that thing they could make small changes to the structure of reality itself. They could, for example, make a light, or start a fire, or make something dirty clean (or for the practical jokers among the lot, making something clean dirty). Through this process, the focus would absorb patalogical energy as the user of the focus would become more adept and capable of manipulating that energy. In short, the better you got at it, the more you could do with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other way of manipulating patalogical energy is through recipes, of a sort. By focusing energy on materials instead of a focus, a magic user could change reality, also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, some people discovered you could just draw patalogical energy out of nature itself. Living things, being patalogical creations in and of themselves could be the source of magic and the manipulation of material reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Celestials, seeing the potential in this, also discovered they could pour their divinity directly into some of their proto-human creations, and using them as a vessel, cause their own kind of havoc in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alas, the Abyssal and Infernal, seeing how this was done, figured out how to do it themselves, and quickly enough we ended up back at a kind of complex stalemate. The Material system churned with a certain randomness, but with transition states that favored balance between the Celestial and the Abyssal-Infernal Axis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Balance once again. At least, it was in balance until a group of humans figured out how to tap directly into creation itself \u2014 tap directly into raw patalogical energy itself. The use of spells and foci, which is knows as Arcana, wouldn\u2019t be necessary in this process of manipulating magic direction, known also as \u201cmeta-magic.\u201d This was not magic based on patalogical background radiation<\/em> or the patalogical imbued<\/em> in Material things and being. This was tapping directly into the source itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, we\u2019re getting ahead of ourselves. First we have to get to the dragons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A particularly odd and unexpected consequence of the creation of the Material was a kind of echo or by-product of suddenly filling a singularity of void nothingness with a multi-verse of somethingness. There came into being the Feywild and the Shadowfell. These two planes can be thought of as reflections or reverberations caused by the Material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Feywild, for the sake of brevity, is where we get the Fey \u2014 not surprisingly. There will be time to talk about the Fey at another time, but try to think of them as a free radical in the chemistry of reality. Or, perhaps it is better to think of them as a high velocity particle shooting on a densely packed mass of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Needless to say, while the Fey rather like themselves very much, no one else does. Even the Fey have trouble with the Fey, which is how we came to have the Seelie and Unseelie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Shadowfell was something rather different. It was a creation of anti-creation or what you might call Ur-dead. It is a macabre representation of the Material that is neither living nor dead. It is not the Etherial, where the spirits reside. Neither is it a hell. It is what the real would be if it were living dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One Fey in particular found the Shadowfell irresistible, and she turned her attention from Fey Magic to Shadow Magic. She is the Raven Queen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not to be outdone by the Material, both the Feywild and the Shadowfell took their turn at attempting creation. It was really more of a \u201cre-purposing.\u201d From proto-humans, the Fey created Elves. And from the parts of many thing severed and reattached (and over and over again), from the Shadowfell, we have the Abominations and Monstrousities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seeing what could be done with proto-humas as a starting point, the Abyssal created the undead. The Infernal created the Teifling. Together they managed all sorts of oddities, like the orcs, the goblins, the gnolls, the trolls, the ogres, the hobgoblins, and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Celestial, unsatisfied with the proto-humans themselves and seeing what the Abyssal-Infernal Axis were churning out on a regular basis, themselves attempted their own upgrade of sorts, which are the Aassamar. The Aassamar being a race the Celestials hoped would finally do what they were told and get down to the business of tilting the war in their favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the outset, all of these creations, as well as the original photo-human, set about the drudgerous undertaking of trying to annihilate each other violently. Again, with a perplexing and frustrating tendency toward an equilibrium, no particular party, faction, splinter-group, cadre, or holy crusade ever took much of an upper hand and never for very long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, this, finally, brings us to the Dragons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Elemental Planes, feeling somewhat left out of this on-going madness, decided it was time they put a clawed foot in. From the elements, there manifested the dragons: The Red Dragon with the flame of the Fire Plane; the Green Dragon with chlorine gas breath of the Air; the White Dragon with the breath of Frozen Water; the Black Dragon with the Earthen breath of acid; and then together all of kludged together the Blue Dragon with Electric breath, figuring a bit of each of the Planes all in one couldn\u2019t hurt for good measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Dragons were startlingly good at causing mayhem, chaos, and death. Intelligent, narcissistic, greedy, and proud, they set about the relatively straight-forward task of showing every other living creature in the Material Plane that Dragons could mince the lot of them into so much ground meat. They were exceedingly good at destroying each other, too, until they finally got together and divided up the world in regions where they more or less observed territorial boundaries, known as Monopolies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Scales rose and the scales tipped. Ur fell to the rule of the Dragons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n No one on the Material Plane knows exactly how long this rule lasted. This is for two principle reasons. First, dragons tend to live a very long time unless opposed by a very large army or another very large dragon. Two, most people during the rule of the dragons didn\u2019t live well enough or long enough to bother with things like \u201cwriting stuff down,\u201d when there were more important things to do \u2014 like forage for food, hide from dragons, and eventually flee from the dragons that found you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dragons massed most of the material wealth of the Material plane, hoarding metals and gems because they just liked shiny and useless things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The rule of the Dragons ended when two things occurred, more or less simultaneously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First, the Celestials, who were fit to be tied over the whole situation, had been throwing wave after wave of Assamar at the Dragons to no avail, when one especially cleaver god suggested, \u201cWhy not kick the bastards back to the Outer Planes with dragons of our own!?\u201d After a few, loud objections about how ridiculous that idea was had finally subsided, a group of gods set about creating dragons from the Material world itself. From Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Iron, they created Metallic dragons to oppose the Chromatic Dragons. The Celestials imbued the Metallic dragons with similar properties as the Chromatic dragons, following the simple logic: \u201cwhat works, works.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second thing to happen was completely unexpected, though it should have been bloody obvious at this point to anyone who had been paying any attention at all, and it entirely upset the whole apple cart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A group of humans, about a hundred or so, were cleaver enough, bold enough, and stupid enough to figure on a plan to rid the world of the Dragons by increasing the power of their magic. Do do this, they would seek answers to the mysteries of the patalogical itself. By delving deep into an understanding of pataphysical reality, they would attempt to directly, purely, and creatively<\/em>, employ magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They challenged the dragons, and with the power of pure creation, they were winning. The dragons, in turn, responded just as the Abyssal, the Infernal, the Fey, the Shadowfell, and Nature did: they drew from the pattern of the proto-humanoids and built their own humanoids to fight other humanoids. These were the Dragon Born. If there were any match for the pataphysical Sorcerers, they were too little, too late. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u2018pataphysical Sorcerers blasted the dragons into near extinction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, they blasted each other<\/em> into near extinction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, there were five who became so powerful they ruled Ur in the same fashion the dragons had: they divided up the world into territories and tried as much as possible to stay out of each other\u2019s business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These were the Sorcerers, and their particular form of magic came to be known as sorcery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And, this lasted quite a while, as the Sorcerers lived unnaturally long lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They too hoarded material wealth, likely for no better reasons than the Dragons had done it first, leaving them with the simple task of just moving piles of the stuff from point A to point B.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most Wizards these days presume that the Sorcerers built their towers merely as a place to put it all. If this was the case, then it is safe to assume the Sorcerers amassed one hell of a lot of material wealth, since these towers rose miles<\/em> into the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nobody knows what set off the battle between the remaining five sorcerers. Anyone close enough to any of the five were annihilated with the five sorcerers themselves. It\u2019s safe to assume it was jealously, vanity, and or greed, in some combination. The violent cataclysm saved the Celestials the bothersome work of having to figure out some way of rooting the buggers out of Ur. They were, in fact, quite pleased that the annoying buggers took it upon themselves. The Celestials are unbothered by the very large pockets of highly radiant pataphysical energy doing and undoing all sorts of strange things where ever a direct hit from one of the Sorcerers landed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This radiation produced further monstrosities \u2014 bizarre creatures of the imagination \u2014 and certain humanoid oddities, like the Goliath, Firbolg and the Tortle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Abyssal and the the Infernal were also quite pleased. They see in the instability in the Material as an opportunity to finally capture Ur for themselves. Whether they intend to do this as an Axis or as betrayers has yet to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Dragons see an opportunity to re-assert themselves on Ur, now that the Sorcerers are going and the world is in too great a disorder to mount any kind organized defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Feywild and the Shadow Fell, or their interests, are desperate to restore order and balance on the Material Ur, since the imbalance and chaos in the Material is reflected as imbalance and chaos in their realms as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This, then, is the Aftermath. A time of rebuilding for each of the players vying for control of Ur in the manifest chaos they created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Wizards re-started time at the year -500, thinking that is about how long it will take to restore some sort of order amid all of the chaos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many are of the considered opinion these Wizards are optimists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Celestials and the Abyssal-Infernal Axis have always been at war. That is, they were at war before there was such a thing as time. So you could say, they have been at war \u201cfor all time,\u201d \u201csince the beginning … Continue reading